The Angels Song | Page 6

nearer the throne of God than themselves. Unseen by him, these celestials guard the good man's bed; watch his progress; wait on his person; guide his steps; and ward off many a blow the devil aims at his head and heart. They are the nurses of Christ's babes; the tutors and teachers of His children. A belief in guardian saints is a silly Popish superstition; but we have good authority in Scripture for believing that in this our state of pupilage and probation, along all the way to Sion, in the conflicts with temptation, and amid the thick of battle, God commits His saints to angels' care; and that, as it is in their loving arms that the soul of an aged saint is borne away to glory, every child of God has its own celestial guardian, and sleeps in its little cradle beneath the feathers of an angel's wing. What said our Lord? On setting a child before the people as a pattern for them to copy, "Take heed," He said, "that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven."
But whether we are, or are not, the happier for angels, there is no question that they are the happier for us. They always loved God; but since man's redemption they love Him more, and employ higher strains and loftier raptures to praise His wisdom, power, holiness, justice, and love. It has disclosed to them new views of God, and opened up in heaven new springs of pleasure. Heaven has grown more heavenly, and though they might have deemed it impossible to add one drop to their happiness, they are holier and happier angels. There is joy among the angels of heaven over every sinner that repenteth; and to the joyful cry, My son that was dead is alive again, they respond, as they receive the returned penitent from the Father's arms into their own, My brother that was dead is alive again, that was lost is found! Never from surf-beaten shore or rocky headland do spectators watch with such anxious interest the life-boat, as, now seen and now lost, now breasting the waves and now hurled back on the foaming crest of a giant billow, she makes for the wreck, as they watch those who, with the Bible in their hearts and hands, go forth to save the lost. And when the poor perishing sinner throws himself into Jesus' arms, what gratulations among these happy spirits! "There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons." The event is one which I can fancy was in the prophet's eye, when, fired with rapture, he cried, "Sing, O ye heavens; for the Lord hath done it: shout, ye lower parts of the earth; break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein: for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel!" And the heavens do sing. While the saints, descending from their thrones, cast their sparkling crowns at Jesus' feet, and ten times ten thousand harps sound, and ten times ten thousand angels sing, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing."

III.
REDEMPTION GLORIFIES GOD THROUGHOUT ALL THE UNIVERSE.
With a small band of fishermen at His side, and no place on earth where to lay His head, Jesus pointed to the sun, riding high in heaven or rising over the hill-tops to bathe the scene in golden splendour, and said, "I am the Light of the world." A bold saying; yet the day is coming, however distant it appears, when the tidings of salvation carried to the ends of the earth, and Jesus worshipped of all nations, shall justify the speech; and the wishes shall be gratified, and the prayers answered, and the prophecies fulfilled, so beautifully expressed in these lines of Heber:
"Waft, waft, ye winds, His story, And you, ye waters, roll, Till, like a sea of glory, It spreads from pole to pole."
But shall our world be the limits of the wondrous tale? Though ever and deeply interesting as the scene of redemption, just as to patriots is the barest moor where a people fought and conquered for their freedom, our earth holds in other respects but a very insignificant place in creation. In a space of the sky no larger than a tenth part of the moon's disc, the telescope discovers many thousands of stars, each a sun, attended probably by a group of planets like our own: their number indeed is such that many parts of the heavens appear as if they were sprinkled with gold-dust; and probably